October is nearing its end. It’s been a good month.

The weather’s been amazing for the most of the month, it only turned grey and cold this week. Not often can I wear a T-shirt at the end of October. Bliss!

Ivan befriending a cat in front of our office door

 

Besides the sun, my heart’s been warmed by several meetings with friends from the midterm training. The first weekend of the month, both Alejandro and Jože were in Bratislava and I had the chance to hang out with them for a few days. 🙂 In the middle of the month, Ivan and I took part in the Slatinka weekend camp which was a great escape to the nature. I extended my trip for another two days, visited Veronika in Banská Štiavnica and all the people in Prenčov.

 

Slatinka

 

Building a seedbed

 

Prenčov

 

There were many pancake days throughout the month (many thanks to Ivan and Alejandro!),  sweet memories. Also several pizza nights, so salty memories as well. We went to a movie night to Morgane, Tuuli and Jorge’s place, had some pizza and watched LOTR part 1 and 2. Finally, I had a chance to meet with Tuuli, just the two of us, and find my way back to speaking the almost forgotten Estonian. We took a trip to foggy Hainburg so you can imagine how amazing the view was on top of the hill :D. But it was still nice to walk in the nature and chat.

 

Hainburg

 

At work, I came up with a strategy for the INEX YouTube channel. I’ve been producing content like there’s no tomorrow, there’s a bunch of cool stuff coming up. Go subscribe! It’s super interesting to me to try new things with filming and editing and strategising and learning about all of this stuff. I can’t believe that I could pick up a long lost hobby and do it during my work time. I’m honestly really excited!

In other news, I finished the outcome of my workshop, it will soon be up on the INEX web page. We also went to the Economic University for a promo event. I didn’t enjoy it very much, it’s not my cup of tea to go and try to sell my brand. I’d rather be behind the scenes coming up with ideas and strategies. But hey, at least I tried. On the 23rd, we hosted a Tea Meeting, it was an international quiz that the three of us created. I’d say it was the best Tea Meeting so far – fun, interesting and exciting both to prepare and execute. There are some photos here about it.

 

The only sad thing about this month was that our Slovak lessons came to an end. No more meetings with Zuzka :(. We took a test and it told me that I have A2 proficiency. I’m not too sure about it, maybe comprehension but definitely not production. Still, I’m pretty satisfied with myself.

 

Now, the next things will be to create an outcome of the whole EVS project and to fill in the Youthpass. I’d like to go on a couple more trips as well. Talking about trips, on Thursday, Elena and I are going to Ljubljana for an extended weekend. Let’s see how the city looks like during the time of spirits… I’ve only been there in June.

 

In seven weeks, I’ll be back in Estonia. Whoa.

I’m not worried too much, I already worried a lot in September when it finally hit me that the end is creeping nearer. I’m just sending job applications now and then, trying my luck. In this day and age, everything can happen and change so quickly that there’s no point to exhaust oneself with worrying about the future.

One thing that I do know is that I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward. I have lots of dreams. I want to work in the capital but also to live in a country house and grow my own vegetables. Maybe one first and then the other, who knows how it’ll work out. I want to build an insect hotel. I want to build my own seedbed. I want to learn about digital marketing, perhaps to create my own business, to master another foreign language (maybe Russian or German) not just to dabble in it. To create, craft, love, laugh, cry, hike, breathe… To live.

 

Right now, I’m feeling good. So far, it’s been the best year of my life.

Until the next time!

It sounds a little bit melodramatic, I know. But in general this is the way I feel about September.

The end is crawling closer and closer. The summer is over. The days are long but the weeks are flying. I’m thinking about what comes after and missing home a bit. Not much motivation, mostly staying home in bed… To be fair, I was kind of ill from the end of August until mid-September. I even had the honour of visiting Slovak doctors. Twice. Now I’m better, nothing that a good rest can’t fix.

 

Even though, looking back on September, the first word that comes to mind is ‘gloomy’, there were also a bunch of sweet moments. Now that I’m out of the dark hole or at least fighting against it, I want to focus on the positive. I managed to edit the videos for the Brekov and ECO-Slatinka camps and people were saying great things about them. One evening we went to Dungeon pub for a board game night with some volunteers and Adam from Iuventa. I learned to defuse a virtual bomb. 😀 I also went to a drop-in session of improv theatre and helped Morgane with filming a video by starring in it, haha (ah, but that was still in August!).

 

 

The Evolution of Inex Man

 

 

 

From the third week of the month, things seemed to become a bit brighter. We had more stuff to do in the office, like preparing presentations for Potáborka, and at the end of the week we had people from Dell coming to help with some works around the office for the Volunteering Week.

We were cleaning windows, painting the barriers of the balcony and reorganising the stock house. In the evening, we had a barbecue and after that we went to a story telling evening. Finally, after seven and a half months of being the only Estonian volunteer among the hordes of Frenchmen, Spaniards and Greeks, I met another Estonian girl at the event. Yay!

 

On Saturday, we were back in the office for Potáborka. It’s an event for camp leaders to share their experience from the summer. Us, EVS volunteers, had some extra tasks such as setting up the snacks, energizing, calling to action and speaking about our Messenger workshops. At the end of the day, we all got our certificates and then we had a surprise. We went bowling! 🙂 I was pretty good, not the best one but also not the worst. When the time was up, we moved to another bar and stayed there for a while, chatting and laughing. It was a great day!

The next thing in the office was the Tea Meeting about taking meaningful photos. I got to know some great tips and new interesting apps. We had fun editing our photos in Photoshop Fix and later sharing our creations with everyone. I also made some sweets with kama for the event.

 

On Saturday, I decided to go shopping. It was raining but I thought enough is enough and I need to get some fresh air. I ended up going to two second-hand shops and Lidl all by foot. Later I checked from Google maps that I’d  walked 7.5 km.

 

In the evening, there was an event at A4. There are now new volunteers so I wanted to check it out. We hung out there for a bit, met volunteers also from another organisation and then Elena, Ivan and I decided to go to Dungeon pub, again. It was their birthday so we assumed it’s going to be full but I guess the stars were in our favour or something. There was exactly one empty table which we quickly occupied for the rest of the evening. There was ‘Just Dance’, there was free champagne and cake, there were prizes and finally, there was a dance party. It was such an amazing night, I haven’t danced like this for a whiiiile.

I’m hoping the next months to be better, to make the time I have left here worthwhile. Lezz doo eet!

Until the next time!